If Handel was with us today, he would surely be in his element writing oratorios for the BBC Proms. It is not just the grandeur, but also the sense of a deep-seated communal tradition that makes these straight-talking works come across so vividly to a Proms audience.

As one expects these days, Saturday's performance of Belshazzar came in period style. The number of performers was closer to what Handel might have expected - even if the Victorian edifice of the Royal Albert Hall presumes an extravaganza more like a lavish Thomas Beecham arrangement.